AW [Secret World] Charades

Blacksite

"Et tu Judge?" The detective snorted, before turning back towards the darklight cube. Pasty didn't like normal light it seemed. The grooming kit was a dud, unless we wanted the xenos to open a beauty salon, and the blade was strange, by make and design.

But the stone with the button. What did it do? Did it give off heat, did it transmit any waves? All his enhanced senses were awake trying to glimpse any truth from the equipment.

All musings went out his head as the thud echoed out. Magician followed and saw the Judge with the hammer. Guess the problem looked like a nail, especially to a blind man.

“Baguette lover?!” Hermit whipped her head up from helping Tower. She looked over to the girl and murmured, “I’ve created a monster.” Flexing her fingers, she made a solemn vow. “I swear I will destroy that damn fedora.” With a scoff, she tossed her hair over a shoulder, eyes narrowed at Magician.

In her sweetest voice, she addressed ‘The Detective’. “Bon travail, Détective amateur de tartelette à la crème,” she said, waving a hand at him. “Have you considered the possibility that this device is not merely absorbing light, but transforming it? Akin to a miniature black hole, swallowing the light whole and then spitting it back out in a form we can’t see with our naked eyes. This ‘darklight’ could be akin to certain types of invisible electromagnetic radiation to the human eye, such as infrared or ultraviolet light?" She humphed, crossing her arms. "I might be able to alter my eyes to detect it more clearly and provide a more accurate answer."

With a shudder, the Augur shook her head a little, "But I might blind myself if I was not careful. And would require a better biopsychkinetic specialist to fix my eyes if I get it wrong."

Interogation Room

"You've got five minutes. Dont kill the damn thing or injure it beyond what the 'Office can put back together. If you think my group is a pain in the ass you haven't seen anything yet when it comes to the Deadhand group the OIA has coming for this guy and the red tape they're going to wrap this whole deal in. Cost them good men but the marines did too good a job and it's going to bite them in the ass as soon as the OIA starts trying to throw their weight around." Katherine grunted after the table went flying.

The pale flinched ever so slightly, lips twitching in some involentary response as it flashed sharpened teeth and tongue with an inwards hiss before composing itself, pulling slightly at the long chain of the cuffs that were attached to a bolted plate in the ground.

And then it settled and for the first time really seemed to appraise any of them as it clearly registered the disparity in strength and less than contact it took to throw the table. It leaned forwards slightly, head up as it looked down the slits that made up its nose. While judgement couldn't actually make eye contact with it, the pale could see over the lip of the augurs shades to the soft almost noticeable glow from the irises of his blind spheres as its body went stock still.

"Korghal?" It rasped a long drawn out word with a questioning tone, completely ignoring Judgements motion as it looked to the various augurs piecing something together as its lips pulled taught and open and bared its teeth.

"Luu gec korghal." It intoned in a soft but intense tone through hooded eyes and bared teeth. The wheels already turning as he started to piece together the meaning of the words at the same time as his peers the augurs enhanced hearing picked up the groan as one of the links in the carbon and aluminum chain securing his hands to the ground bent as the pale continued to pull, while the plate on the ground seemed to bowe up slightly as the center of the metal was pulled taught.

The words translated at the moment the link in the chain snapped.

Apostate?

On this land apostacy taints it once more.

Faster than should have been possible the pale rose, wrists still cuffed together but free for the most part as a grip that felt as strong as a Golems wrapped around Judgements neck and squeezed as its nails dug into the back of his neck and something popped painfully in one of his vertebrae as it was unaligned. There was a violent hiss as the full weight of the pale bore down on judgment; A sudden and very new weakness to the Augur suddenly presented itself as the oxygen flow was cut off from his brain causing any rational action he might have taken to be overridden by base instincts he still clearly had as his eyes bulged and one arm flopped slightly against his hammer.

The Fool was there after a seeming eternity that had only lasted a fraction of a second as the older girl placed the flat of her hand against the Pales arm only for nothing to happen. The humanoid xenos didn't even notice as it continued to squeeze with the strength of an olypian with burning hate in its eyes.

Other Room

"We think it's a more natural light spectrum some of the native fauna to Eresh have developed with the lack of natural UV lighting." The marine Lieutenant offered at the twos examination of the darklight sphere. "There are no natural white lighting on the planet unlike out old sun, and the star in this system is red. That mixed with abundance of luminous greens, reds, and even some blues being more natural in some of the phosferecent plant life and animals that produce it to hunt means that the local animals and whatever the Pale is can see better with whatever this blacklight is compared to normal white-lighting. It makes a lot of sense on why the lighthouse here on base seems to discourage any of the more aggressive predators if the foreign light source actually hurts their eyes."

The marine specifically did not question any of what the two had actually said in regards to their powerset. Some kind of intelligence specialist within BAMF even a junior one he clearly knew better than to question any of what they said that didn't make sense.

With the slide of a door and the shaking of rain gear, Tuesday and Black re-entered the blacksite, looking around at the lack of others and locking onto Hermit as the bald liquidator took out an object and tossed it to her, the psychics reflexes easily able to catch it out of the air.

Straight like a short gnarled branch it was immediately foreign to the touch like the rest of the alien equipment. At close to ten inches long it looked like a bumpy and slightly twisting white stick abought as thick around as two fingers that had several protrusions on which soft almost milky-transparent nodules jutted out like buttons while at one end some kind of perfectly cut gem of foreign make with a murky white-green coloration protruded where it seemed to be either embedded or the branch grown around the gem.

"We think it's a weapon." Black offered, giving an admonishing look at Tuesday for throwing it as she sat down with some clear exhaustion.

"I want to know how it works. One of the marines, the one not currently dying, neglected to turn it in after he and his surviving comrade took down the pale. He affirms this is what the subject was wielding and compared it to the currently fatal wounds the private with him has suffered that include the removal of three quarters of his stomach in a crescent pattern and the loss of seven percent of his skin on the upper torso and neck. Find out how it works and what it does." The liquidator ordered before looking towards the blank monitoring screen.

"Why is the feed down?"

Towers eyes darted toward the Feed, frantically rushing over the rest of the cameras," What is the quickest way down to this pale!?" her tone was direct, and despite her concern she was completely collected, taking notepad with her as she motioned to the nearest entrance below." Somethings off, I cant feel judgement. All other concerns or questions, instantly became null and void, her family was the only thing she wanted to care for. the only thing mattered at the end of the day.

The act that Judgement was putting on was dropped instantly as the alien broke its restraints. 'Oh fu...' Before he could finish the thought, it had its hands wrapped around Judge's throat. His brain went into overdrive, time slowing for Augur as he processed all of the information. 'Vertebral body out of alignment, further pressure will sever the spinal cord. Approximately 15 seconds before I pass out.' Despite the rational thought process, Judgement was scared. Further beneath that fear was anger. It brought feelings of when Kay and La'Gran had incapacitated him. And now it was happening again. The blind boy had no idea he was doing it, but his face was not one of fear. It was of pure, unadulterated, hatred.

With a rasp, he replied in its own language. "Let go... of me... or die. Your choice..." As he finished, Judge swung his hammer upward, driving it up into the the alien's elbow.

As Hermit caught the object. She felt an almost immediate sense of nausea wash over her. The Augur quickly put the thing on the table and half turned from it. Looking at Tuesday she shuddered visibly. The feeling from the device was almost akin to how she'd felt when the Augurs had been deployed once before. Disoriented from... whatever that thing had been inside of the power facility below Chaldea. It was strange. Wrong. It confused her senses with only the vaguest inkling of how it may or may not have worked. In that briefest of moments, she'd had it in her hands. It felt perhaps a little biological to her. Mechanical too. To a point. A hybridized technology? Even in the state she was in from that brief touch, the Augur was thinking. On some level of just how it worked. But if what they had described about its usage had been true. It was as if her burgeoning hypothesis had begun to take shape. Some form of directed energy weapon. Leagues ahead of what BAMF had at their disposal if they were still using chemical-propellant-based small arms.

Hermit told Tuesday the sensations she'd felt while the Augur held it briefly. And there was no need to state the obvious it was some kind of directed energy weapon.

And with that, Hermit promptly began to dry heave using one hand to keep herself upright as she leaned against the table. Her vision narrowed and a slight ringing of the ears muffled the question-statement of 'Why was the feed down'.

Main Room

"Theres a secure room on the other side of this one." Black stated, to the point, a finger pointing at the wall of screens idle as she rose and hovered over Hermit, her still strange feel to the auditor dyed with concern but also apprehension and caution.

"We didn't give them permission to enter without-" Black started as she paused and the hackles rose on everyone present regardless of psychic potential as a scream sounded somehow through a secure and soundproof wall. It was neither male nor female, young nor old, it was brief and faded in the half second it sounded but despite all that could not be completely recalled as something happened in the other room.

The Marine Lieutenant was on his feet, Pistol in hand but pointed down. The Liquidator, Tuesday, had a hand on a holter under one arm ready to draw as well.

Black had a hand over her stomach and looked as though she were about to vomit.

There was a brief moment of silence following the muffled scream before it was cut off as the bright white lights of the blacksite dimmed yellow and were cut by a flashing red light in the corner and the very slow but building whine of a Claxon siren as one alarm at a nearby corner of the base started and was then followed by another at a distance, and then another.

Secure Room

La'Gran lunged at the pale, nails digging into soft white skin only for her nose to practically explode inwards in a fountain of blood as the Xenos forced an elbow into her face as a reaction as he violently shook Judgement. As the older Augur fell back in recoil the current asphyxiation victim struck out, his hammer hitting the joint and despite feeling the vibration of hitting something solid felt nothing break but a snarl from the aliens mouth as something tore inside judgements throat as the pales nails dug deep into the sides of his neck.

And yet despite his blindness. Despite the fog in his mind and perception being hyper focussed on his attacker Judgement and everyone else present in the blacksites secure holding room felt when Katherin wrapped a hand around the hilt of his hypergeometric knife. Even the Pale looked up, anger and hatred ebbing slighting into a semblance of confusion as the room was filled with an agonized scream that was the blade sliding out of its holster like the strain of metal against metal as the knife was drawn.

It was six inches long, straight, and had only one edge where the blade was snapped in the middle at likely half of what its original length would be leaving a jagged violent point of dull brushed gray and rust spotting of the unkempt artefact. With a simple copper-wrapped handle that ended in a brass ball of a counter weight Katherine drew it above him as if to plunge it down as he lunged forwards at the Pale.

The scream lasted only half a second from the drawing to the thrust but felt like an eternity of painful screeching that did not hurt, harm, or deafen anyone but left a clear resettlement of the psyche as the blade commanded all attention at its point as it drove down towards the Pale as it pulled back, grip lessening on Judgement only for the long chain attached to its writs to pull taught and stop any backpeddling.

The knife sunk two inches of its unnatural point into the forearm of the pale.

And nothing happened.

As the blade stuck and hit bone the Pale looked up, clearly just as confused as Katherine did at the anticlimax of the action.

And then like an overfull balloon the pale expanded from its normal size to twice that in an instant and exploded into a red mist of gore and organs that painted the walls in every direction with the sound of wet slapping leather.

There was a long moment of intense silence as the Augurs stared in confusion processing what just happened as Katherine pulled off his shades, brushed off his tongue of gore, and looked at the empty handle of the knife now lacking a blade and then back to the spot the Pale had just been.

"So that's what that does to a person..." He mused to himself and then started at how loud his murmur seemed in the silence of the room.

Blacksite

Marines swarmed around the base as the alert was rescinded but still patrols past by the blacksite as the two marine intel officers, the three marine guards in their OST armor, Tuesday, Black, and the Augurs all stood across from the monitor screens looking at a formerly white room.

Katherine stood off to the side, bucket and rag in hand wiping gore off himself as he tossed a fresh rag to judgement who was also painted redish-black as he carefully massaged the slowly but much faster than a normal persons marks on his throat while the internal bruising on his windpipe was already nearly back to normal all the while La'gran twisted her hair like a washcloth to wash out the blood.

"What do you mean, Gone?" Niles, one of the intel lieutenants asked his comically unsettling appearing comrade who sat at one of the tables nursing a cup of coffee, waving the other man down silently as if he was being too loud.

"A gas sack or organ maybe we missed..." Harper guessed, then shaking his head as he side-eyed the Augurs, his surface emotions hecktic but suspicion and confusion chief amongst them.

"Harp-" Niles started until Tuesday cleared her throat.

"Moving forward I am invoking the Privacy and Secrets act for everyone in this room." She stated, essentially swearing those without the same clearance as her or Black; The marines, to utmost secrecy or be subject to a charge of treason. "Everyone not one of my agents, Trooper Katherine, or Lieutenant Harper are to self-quarantine upstairs until the arrival of the OIA's SPG team for debriefing and inspection." She declared, getting a look despite wearing their OST armor from the three marines that helped for a tense moment before Lieutenant Niles barked a hesitant order and the four men filed out.

"What did you do, Katherine?" Black asked, sounding tired as she did, sitting once again at a seat compared to the standing Tuesday who crossed her arms and paced about the room.

"Classified." Katherine grinned, his red-face flashing his pearly whites in a way that he clearly enjoyed saying to the two high-ranking OIA agents.

"Bullshit." Black groaned, not caring at all for any games.

"Trooper-" Black warned as Katherine began waving his hands, splashing pink-tinted water everywhere as he did.

"No, Seriously! Class-two hypergeometric artefacts are classified at a military alpha-contractual level. I could tell the Lieutenant over there more than I could tell the rest of you." he admitted before quickly correcting with a "Not that I can tell him either, sorry, sir. Our group has special directives granted by both the Lord Admiral herself and the directors of the OIA and BTS to handle them. "

"It's a hypergeometry weapon." La'gran observed, looking, or pretending to look confused like she normally did as she said it. "But that shouldn't be possible. Hypergeometry by it's nature has no quantifiable form; Even we have no way beyond theory of giving it physical or even metaphysical form outside out minds, let alone containing it." She stated.

"Classified." Katherine pointed out again apologetically as Lieutenant Harper tried to make sense of everything being said before Tuesday looked over at him.

"You should be typing, Lieutenant." She admonished as the officer jumped to his terminal but hesitated a stained sticky finger over the keys before starting.

"We have..." Tusday sighed, looking at a chronometer. "Less than three hours before the OIA's SPG team arrives at the earliest. This operation is a failure but doesn't have to be a critical one. The asset might be gone but we still have all of it's equipment, some of its writing, tools, and enough samples of it's language to make heads or tails of. What do any of you have; Is it enough?" She asked, the question hanging in the air on if any or altogether the lot of them were confident in finding the overall prize that was the Pales hypothetical ship.

Tower took a moment, whilst the conversation bounced between this Enigmatic trooper and the rest of her team. Her silver and gold eyes taking in the mess. " Fool, Hyper geometry can be quantifiable or contained. The possibility of it being an isolated form or Matter manipulation is likely."

Looking over her two fellow Augurs and back to Katerine, she quickly huffed in frustration. The Impossibilities of various missions that no one else could find any logic in. They were meant to find, they were meant to Secure...They were meant to absorb and process.


"I now understand its language, as well as its form of writing. We can continue to read what there is and apply that knowledge to the other Artifacts. Potentially gaining access to any vehicles that thing may have had. More importantly.." Tower quickly moved to judgment and La'gran." Judge, you aren'blind and mute now right? And Fool.... are you alright. Do either of you need additional assistance with your injuries?"

Landing Pad

Six Griffin VTOL Transports, all in black touched down at the landing pad of Khandar military base several hours later as the tiny pinprick of the sun almost penetrated the clouds and the lighter rain of the still dark twilight of early morning. Ramps descending close to sixty troopers exited in a calm but brisk pace with many in black fatigues made of weather resistant materials over which body armor and combat webbing drooped under the weight of weapons slings and ammunition while one Griffin disgourged ten heavily armored OST suits in all black with the markings of the OIA on them and large fausthammer assault rifles at the ready as they oversaw the removal of a large mobile cryogenic pod from their transport as one of the OIAs special SPG team pealed away to converge with a waiting marine team.

"What do you mean, exploded?"

Blacksite

The augurs could feel before the arrival of the OIAs SPG team before they ever set eyes on them. Not through any special metric beyond the subtle shift in emotions of the local marines as information passed through the base it was surprisingly fast as they studied and cataloged all they could when the blacksites doors heavy lock clicked open and the lady Astarte was joined by an older Yuen man who screamed soldier in his bearing despite his simple black fatigues and ballistics vest any OIA triggerman might wear as he, Astarte, and five other goons for lack of a better term flooded in and immediately started scanning the room with an eye for detail.

Upon seeing multiple Augurs he paused, brows shooting up in surprise.

"I was only made aware of one asset on site." He spoke to himself, a recording device strapped to his combat webbing apparent as were the same on the helmets, shoulders, or even weapons of some of his fellow troops.

"The situation changed." Tuesday noted dryly, taking a sip from a cheap paper cup filled with coffee.

"Clearly!" The man said, more amused than anything as his lips pulled ever so slightly in a smile. "So wheres my package?" He asked with the tone of someone who knew about a bad joke about to be sprung.

Twenty Minutes Later

"Exploded?" The SPG lieutenant who they learned was named Sun exclaimed in surprise at Katherines repeated comment, the officer staring at the bladeless hilt in the troopers hand as he held it up but did not reach to take it. "Your group gets all the interesting toys while my boys get to go after cult wackos and foremen laundering credits Katherine!" LT.Sun shook his head as the other man sheathed his knife with a look of chagrin.

While the SPG was a small corps it was made up of several teams of then again smaller teams each with speciality on the reformation of the Special Projects Group after much of it had perished on the old world. Whereas Katherines group, named Witchtrip Specialized in scenarios like the Maulopar and the antics of Augurs, the Clockwork group also known sometimes as Deadhand worked as a specialized group of intelligence agents with but not for the OIA for sensitive and convert operations.

In the case of Katherine and LT.Sun and his men, a large team of them appearing on the base was actually a more calming site to any of the Augurs than even one member of Katherines group who by process of elimination meant would almost always be there for one of them and did so rather cruely to contain any of them even if the situation didn't warrant such treatment. The Clockwork group were more often than not tasked to work alongside Augurs and watch their backs instead of shooting them in the head and putting a shunt in their spines and hearts to keep them paralized.

The two men, Tuesday, and occasionally Black conversed for a while, looking over dataslates and hardcover binders of information, occasionally looking up at one of the Augurs or asking for confirmation for what felt like a while before with the snap of a binder LT.Sun stood back up.

"That settles it then." He declared, handing the binder to one of his men who was helping pack up all the items present in the room, including tables speckled with blood and a stapler alongside the Pales belongings. "My boys are mopping up whats left of the subject in the next room of all it's biomatter. It wont take too long but we've waited long enough for first contact. If this report of your kids is right then through the sediment samples on its boots and higher iron-oxide content found in its hair amongst other factors; Good work by the way. Then we can assume it spent at least a recent period near the ocean. Seeing as how it flew in from a north-easterly direction when on satellite we can assume it didn't start there. Using a narrow-beam search pattern via satellite in proximity to the nearest thirty or so kilometers to the site where it was first encountered we can narrow it down further from the field. Good work." Lt.Sun, with that, simply turned and walked out into the early-morning rain of the day and started casually giving orders to his men.

"Wait, that's it?!" Katherine sounded offended, looking at Black and then Tuesday who both shruged.

"LT.Sun has tactical command now that he's here. Hes calling the shots now, not us." Black rubbed at her temples and took a sip of coffee before putting it down and looking at it, clearly nausious.

Inside Judge's mind, everything slowed down even further. 'Internal damage to larynx sustained. Bleeding. There's blood. Oxygen. Need oxygen.' The bald augur quickly began to panic as he fell to the ground. With a sputtering cough, he spat blood onto the floor. It wasn't until after Judge managed to clear his lungs before he noticed everything was finished. 'Well... I'm gonna pay for this later...' he thought as he tried to catch his breath. He felt Tower as she neared. In answer to her question, he exposed his throat to her, showing off the damage. His fingers began moving rapidly, signing a reply to her. "Fine. Throat damaged. I'll just rest it for now."

"Let's not start changing our eyes just yet." Magician said, before turning towards Hermit, catching her as she began to dry heave. "You alright?" he began to ask, before the liquidator's words reached his years. The feed? But that meant...

"Judge!" Magician shouted, pulling out his estoc just before the scream nearly made him drop it. As soon as he recovered, he joined Judgement and Tower, barely pausing to see all the gore. "Judge, you alright?!"

Idly, he listened to the grown ups arguing about the mission and critical failure and other words that didn't matter. Judge wasn't dead. That was a success on his book. "I thought you were supposed to be the smart one, huh?" he couldn't help but joke.

Blacksite

"My men will be ready within the hour, I should like to commission your Augurs as on-site support and-" Lt.Sun began, looking to Black and Tuesday who both nodded and almost in unison began typing on dataslates likely some official authorization while the SPG officer turned to the Lady Astarte who remained albeit quietly as she passively observed all that was said with an unreadable expression until she was addressed.

"Acting in my capacity as a naval officer under the jurisdictions of both the council and the Lord Admiral herself formally express my right to requisition from BAMF assets at this location." He finished as Astarte gave a perfect and likely rehearsed response almost immediately after inquiring as to the depth of his forces need for requisition.

"No less than three Griffin transports; Two of which equipped for rapid MEDEVAC and a third for mechanized transport for no less than one knight-" He began as Astarte held a hand up.

"Khandar has only one full-ranked knight who is currently off-site. The Major can authorize one junior knight and a squire team." She offered, getting a nod from the Lt. who continued.

"Basilisks?" He asked next.

"We can have three pre-flighted in the air within the hour. Will you require marine support?"

"Negative. The group has adequate manpower. It would take too long to coordinate a larger ground force. Cavalry support and their squires and airsupport to keep our target grounded will suffice. We will accept a liaison for further coordination on site, however, and for aftermath."

The two kept up a back and forth of supply and demand for minor things as Katherine stood up and stretched, getting the Augurs attention to him while he waved down one of Astartes marines.

"Show us to the armory, yeah?"

Armory.

The Armory was a flat-roofed bunker of a building with a wide elevated clearing around it and a multitude of overhanging arches likely designed for marines to stay at least partially out of the rain as they waited as the Augurs, Katherine, and Black were buzzed inside and berated by hot air of the buildings interior so dry that by design seemed impossible for humidity to set.

Lockers and racks lined every wall with weapons and small black cans filled with ammo while sets of OST armor half dismantled lay on tables for maintenance as a grizzled set of older marines looked the psychics up and down with clear hostility for being in their sacred temple that radiated off of them in waves but remained unspoken.

"SPG Requisition," Katherine informed them, getting irritation and even more anger out of the armorers directed at him as the techs grumbled.

"Vests for the agents and Tier-1 submunitions, As for me..." Katherine approached a suit of OST armor, looking it up and down.

Bulletproof vests and webbing were piled up on tables for the Augurs, black and gray with a lot of webbing loops for equipment and pouches for magazines a series of techs began showing each Psychic how to fit them over their uniforms while one of them placed helmets and another the thick waterproof trenchcoats the marines wore.

On another table sidearms of Cerberus Revolvers, Gladius Handguns and next to those even a couple Huilu handheld flamethrowers next to, from a crate labeled OIA a half dozen Jackhammer SMG mass drivers of which Black already had one of but placed down in favor of a Carbine-variant Caliburn that one of the armorers scoffed at her choice of likely by its shorter length.

"I am authorizing you to equip small arms for this operation," Black informed them. "You all have basic small arms training but restrictions on engagement still apply; You will remain with trooper Katherine and I and only engage if and when we allow it. If you need anything else speak up now there wont be another chance."